Coffin Island

by Will Berkeley

  Flash didn’t have freewill. His orders came from some fiery hell above. Or perhaps his orders came from below. Was it up or down? Was it inbred or nurture? Frankly it didn’t matter. I was too far gone to look in any direction with any objectivity.

  Flash was merely protecting the library. Protecting knowledge was his inalienable task. He didn’t care about us. We were merely ticks on the corpse of the animal. And he didn’t even care about the animal. Knowledge was irrelevant to him. It was his task that he was attached to.

  We were the unwelcome recipients of his superfluous malevolence. But what good is roaring at the whole world if you haven’t got your heart into it? Flash was putting his flaming soul into it. Only a fool wouldn’t grant him that. The rest of that cantankerous beast is best left uncovered. We need to shroud that hideous beast in a bit of mystery. Otherwise he becomes completely unpalatable.

  We did ungraciously crash into the next world with a fiery thud. Flash couldn’t be held responsible for that as much as I would like to criticize him for it. However he wasn’t expected to provide us with a graceful entry. He was tasked with the bells of hell escape which he accomplished magnificently. He put the pedal to the metal and outran the cops.

  The getaway car made it. Sadly the wheelman was another story. In typical fashion he got pinched by the cops as we entered the atmosphere. We were going to miss him. We were really going to miss him. He had a lot of fiery things to say. He had a lot of nothing to say.

  Frankly it was his fault. Flash was showing off. He was bouncing up and down in the glass tailpipe. He was letting out hearty roars. He was pounding on his fiery chest.

  He was gloating like a rooster. He was doing that whole cock on the block act. However his celebratory chicken strut was a bit premature. You need to save that victory cluck for after the victory. Otherwise it’s a disgraceful cluck. The world doesn’t need anymore of those.

  A tiny firefly attacked Flash. It flew towards him with the casualness of a moth. It wheeled its way right up the glass tailpipe with the utmost care. That firefly had all the time in the world to reach its destination. It just sort of drifted towards its objective with a gracefulness that we seldom see in witchcraft. It made you wonder if it was even witchcraft. Perhaps there were things in this world that were outside the purview of witchcraft. Or the creature at the top was sneaking a cigarette again.

  Chapter

  A firefly killed Flash. What it lacked in size it made up for in atomic force. It flew right into his fiery chest like it was just a mistake. It had merely bumped into our protagonist. It was not an antagonist as it had delicately suggested as it casually wheeled towards its final destination. Flash let out a hoary roar to the side to permit the fiery speck safe passage. He thought the little firefly was funny. Laughter was his last word.

  A flaming ape of bottomless malevolence died laughing. Flash was extinguished with an almost imperceptible pop. One minute Flash was roaring with all his vainglorious might and the next he was gone. He was erased. It was quite the demonstration of hubris for the allegory enthusiast of which I included myself among. I had been trying to read the symbols and signs of this world mightily. I was thrilled that it had finally delivered up something that I could decipher. The message was clear.

  Don’t let your guard down in this world especially in victory. And no matter your size. No matter how diminutive you may be. You can always tear down your mightiest enemy. Just pretend to be amusing him. I was taking great comfort in these truths. How to put them to practice though?

  There wasn’t even a puff of smoke to mourn. How do you process the erasure of a flaming ape that has just saved your life? An ape that was desperate to kill you? It seemed best to just forget about him. Pretend that he didn’t exist. That flaming ape in the tailpipe of the glass Cadillac didn’t just save my life. A flaming ape did not do me a solid. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Perhaps you need medical attention. You sound dangerous to me too. What sort of disturbed person begins to have thoughts like these? And you have the audacity to voice them to me? What a maniac!

  Denial was the only fitting memorial for that flaming ape. You are born into fire, my brother. You die into fire. Not even smoke will mourn you. Chin up, flaming ape. You never existed.

  There was also a delectable symmetry to the horrible crash into the new world to keep the overworked mind occupied. There were more violent matters to untangle. The symbolism and violence was so in your face that you had to admire it. Or at the very least peer at with a begrudging respect and benign hostility. The horror commanded as much.

  You were also afraid of what the horror might do to you next if you didn’t give it the proper respect for the latest horror that it had unleashed on you. There was also that too. Fear was a large component as it should be in horrific situations.

  Why travel to the end of the magical river if there isn’t something cognoscente that speaks uncomfortable truth? You want what’s out there to make you shudder. You wouldn’t embark on the journey to the heart of darkness if there were light at the end of the tunnel, now would you? You would leave that unhappy task to some riverboat fool. You want a connoisseur of horror at the end of the tunnel with a horn full of blood. Let’s greet the dark beast. Shall we?

  The glass Cadillac was roaring through an autobahn of hell. Flaming creatures were trying to board it with the expressed intention of murdering the occupants through incineration. Miraculously it escaped in no small part due to the heroic efforts of a despised flaming ape. The glass Cadillac entered a hideous red atmosphere. Then it smashed into a moonscape populated with dead bodies. The glass Cadillac shattered into a million pieces like a massive chandelier assassinating all the masked revelers at a decadent ball. The rebels had infiltrated the city limits and the decadent aristocrats had to be brutally murdered. Even the chandelier sensed this. The broken glass swam into our faces like so many minnows. Blood was pouring out of my eyes as I blinked in the horror at the end of the line. Everybody get the hell out. This journey doesn’t include a turnabout.

  Crypt Island was populated with dead bodies. It was the spaceship that had the live occupants. This somehow seemed appropriate. Why not wreck into your next world broken and bleeding? Blood pouring out of your eyeballs? Don’t let the fact that it’s a dead planet trouble you.

  The last one was such a disaster of epic proportions. Surely the next one will be much worse. Those bleeding eyeballs hint at it. Try to look around with all that broken glass in your eyes, will you now? Dry up those bloody tears because you’re here. You made it to hell, congratulations. Not exactly the destination that you had in mind? Tell it to hell. See if it cares.

  What about a finger for your spine for first aid in this new world? There is no Red Cross here. As you sit there in terrible car crash shock, all your bones broken. Why not chill that finger down a bit? How about a dead finger for that broken spine? We’ll run it up and down a bit now that it’s cool. Let’s just zip it up and down your broken spine one more time for good measure. It’s beginning to knit back together. That broken spine doesn’t hurt too much, now does it? You’re beginning to feel much better now. The screaming belies it.

  Why are you screaming in such agony? I already told you that your broken bones are knitting themselves back together. Stop that bellyaching. You’re going to live. Stop crying. Witchcraft is putting you all back together. Shush, now baby.

  All the other occupants of the spaceship are crying horribly too. How can we scream in this much agony? Is the voice box the last organ to die? Everybody shut up including me. This hideous screaming is unbecoming and it’s annoying me. I don’t want to scream in pain anymore. I want to make whoever did this to me, scream in hideous agony. How do I arrange that inversion with witchcraft?

  At least the broken glass is ejecting itself from your eyeballs with pleasant efficiency. The glass Cadillac needs it back because it’s reassembling itself right there over yonder. It is putting itself back together behind a stack of corpses.
The glass Cadillac is a vehicle with a certain reserve.

  Or it didn’t want you to see the proprietary secrets of the occult that were lurking under the hood like so many ghouls. There it was again. You had to admire the ingenuity of magical Detroit. It was back. And it was black. It was into that real dark magic. However it was hard to admire it for long because blood was reentering my eyes along with all the other holes in my body. Why not? I want that blood back. I’m going to put it to excellent use shedding the blood of others very shortly. You can’t kill if you’re dead yourself, you see? I have to be reborn out of this gruesome death to extract my revenge. Hurry up now, force of the occult, I want to kill you.

  That was about the size of it. I was dying yet wanting to kill. A dead man played Mozart on my spine as I shook that car crash away. Then the grave robber did Beethoven while the wounds closed. The blood poured back in like razor blades. My nerves needed plaster casting. So this is what it felt like to experience violent death?

  Chapter

  A massive red ghoul seemed to be rising out over the horizon in this world. And he was laughing at me. That doesn’t do much for the old self-confidence, now does it? I’m in my death rattle and a massive red ghoul is laughing at me? I shook my head to clear the final cobwebs away.

  My brain had been jolted off its stems. However it was reattaching itself nicely. I could feel it stapling itself back down to my skull with rude efficiency. It was comforting to feel the center of the human nervous system tacking itself to my broken cranium.

  It felt like my brain was climbing back out of the autopsy jar into the demonstration skeleton in the science class. Why not run that film backwards?

  My frontal lobes were beginning to spark again. They were flickering a bit but they fired up with a furious flight like a flock of geese being accosted by a shotgun blast. A whole gaggle of geese were honking in my ears. Why not fire that twelve gauge shotgun right into my face? You seem to have missed a spot.

  My hearing was shot because my ears were sitting in my hands. Actually I had a whole bunch of body parts in my lap. I wasn’t sure why I was holding onto my ears seeing as major organs had evacuated the vehicle but that’s what the mind does in moments of panic. It clutches to small insignificant things like ears instead of the heart. I had kicked that aside out of disgust when it exited my body. It was too gruesome to pick up.

  The heart, liver and lungs seemed to have suffered the least. They jumped in my corpse without any fuss. It wasn’t too crude of a reverse autopsy. I wiped away the tears, blood and cranial flood. Who wants to fight in this world because now I’m ready?

  I’ve had enough of this abuse. You can’t slaughter a man and expect him not to wage furious war against you. The mistake is all yours because you don’t put him back together after you given him an autopsy. You just created Frankenstein, you stupid fool.

  The red ghoul was brought into more hideous focus. He wasn’t a comedian. He wasn’t a cosmic entertainer. He wasn’t making the cruelest of jokes that he could possible muster at the expense of my dignity. That red ghoul was just the sun of this world.

  The red ghoul was just plasma interwoven with magnetic fields. There is absolutely nothing to worry about in this new world. Put your mind at ease. The red sun of hell is shining on your face, rejoice.

  I suppose there are worse things than red dawn in hell. Although sunset in heaven must be lovely when all the angels are being slaughtered. That’s it for heaven, angels. It’s shutting down for good. Hand in your wings. You can cut them off yourself. Or we’ll just chop them off for you. We can do this anyway you like. Heaven is going under. It’s God’s honest truth. The keeper of heaven wouldn’t lie to you.

  The problem with heaven, you see? Nobody qualifies to get in here anymore. We’re opening up a new division of hell in the Third World where it’s cheaper. Stop your grousing, we’ll call you heaven’s devils, will that placate you? Laugh all you want, angels, because you’re the first occupants of the devil’s newest coal pit whether you like it or not. Shovels and lamps are over there. Grab a bucket and look lively.

  The Casket Island School for Witches, welcome. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am a winged beast of wealth and taste. Shall I spread my wings to make you feel more comfortable? Did I mention that there will be no shelter here? There is no love under these wings. You feel me?

  The Casket Island School for Witches, gasp. The corpses are littered everywhere. So this is where witchcraft made its grim home? What the fresh hell is this? Someone shoot whoever is responsible for this. I don’t care if you’re the devil. It’s not a suitable excuse. We have distinct limits for what we will tolerate here. You’ve just gone too far this time witchcraft.

  Casket Island looked like a hell that was painted by a Flemish madman with a frontal lobe disorder. It was a killing field of peasants and toppled hay carts. And what were the giant dead birds and rotten fruit doing everywhere? That wasn’t nice. Why did they have to add that particular flourish? I suppose just to frighten the new arrivals. And it was working marvelously. I was quite terrified. I was also extremely angry about the situation. It’s curious how the mind keeps reeling towards violence when there is no possibility of escape. Why not go down fighting?

  Casket Island was a nightmare painted by a Gothic lunatic. Who gave this mental case a paintbrush? Whoever commissioned this abject alienation should be shot along with the artist. Just line them both up in a tidy line and put one bullet through the two. They didn’t even deserve the dignity of individual execution.

  Casket Island was an alienating affront. It was over-the-top wickedness. It depicted with chilling authority the absurdity and foolishness of mankind. It was high art. Why not go for it if you’re going to do hell? I had to begrudgingly admire this depiction of hell even though I was a principle in it. It was first class horror.

  Couldn’t the artist just tone it down a little bit? Perhaps take a little bit of the hard edge off of hell? Why crucify us all to hell? It wasn’t right. We were already in hell weren’t we? We showed up. And this is what we got for it? Get me the hell out of here!

  We need to medicate this nightmare a bit if we’re stuck with it. Dial it down a few clicks. What sort of evil creature could possibly live here? I wasn’t calling this lurid body farm my home. Let someone else curate this horror of dead humans, giant birds and rotting fruit. I’m bailing out of here at the nearest convenience.

  I was looking back fondly at the purgatory of Crypt Island before I had marched boldly forward into this corpse. I was smacking my lips at the boredom that I had lost on Crypt Island. How could purgatory be such a powerful something? Only in relation, I suppose.

  But as always it was high time to deal with the fresh horror that witchcraft has just dished up. Get that pony of the apocalypse over here. I aim to break that old nag. Pony up, I shouted.

  It was time to throw a leg over that old nag. Let’s see if this pony of the Apocalypse will trot. The nag will probably bite me. What to make of an ornery pony in hell?

  The one thing that was decidedly certain was that I was going to ride him. I wasn’t taking any gruff from a horse in hell. I didn’t care if he was a horse of the apocalypse. Conquest, war, famine and death, you know what? So what?

  What do I have to lose? Let the pony of the apocalypse throw me all he wants. I’m still going to climb back on his itchy back. We’ve got all eternity to do this. You want to play rough, nag? I’m going to play polo with you

  No horse of the apocalypse showed up. I knew as much. You bunch of paper ponies. I had you from giddy up.

  I was shouting into the void. However there was nothing out there. I had threatened, cajoled and cursed. There was nothing out there. I took a moment to carefully consider my circumstances. Perhaps a little quiet reflection in hell was in order. Perhaps this is just the church of the damned. You must sit in silence and ponder God. Why not?

  Chapter

  Casket Island was a graveyard without any coffins or holes. Appare
ntly the gravediggers were previously engaged. Or they had perished in the holocaust with the horses of the apocalypse. You had to gingerly step around all the dead bodies.

  However the dead bodies were painted in revolting colors. What fresh hell is this? Why are all the dead bodies painted? Were there fine artists in hell? And they were painting the corpses in garish colors?

  Some of the bodies were covered in words. Could they be the bodies of the writers of the library of The Coffin Island School for Witchcraft? I supposed it served them right. You have to wear those words in the afterlife. That’s what you get for taking on the big man swiveling in his captain’s chain. You pay dearly in the afterlife. He’s a catcher of souls. That’s how the big guy rolls. You show him cheek. You little foal. And your corpse is a painted pony for all eternity. How do you like your horsemen now?

  Perhaps the paint was a preservative. An artistic fancy that had an embalming as well as fixative touch. Or the devil liked to paint nudes. He enjoyed portraiture on your corpse for all eternity. You were somehow locked in their suffering his vulgar attempts. It somehow made dreadful sense. The devil was an artist of the first right. Or the Third Reich, something wasn’t right.

  I had known that we were steaming the riverboat downstream towards an ungodly destination of ghastly proportions. I just didn’t expect it to be a city of corpses. How do you prepare yourself for such a horrendous thing? I had been warning my cardiovascular system of a massive coronary. A heart attack is in the offing. Prepare yourself, system.

  I had expected something a bit more livelily to attack me. Black claws flashing at me. A quick heart attack was what I had been forecasting. Something that was so horrible that the look of it would just kill me. Was the beast running late? Or the beast wasn’t coming at all?

  This world was just a vast graveyard with painted corpses strewn everywhere like a Flemish vision of hell. This was merely a medieval lunatic’s misconception of The End of the World? I didn’t seem somehow right. My mind was vibrating with suspicion. Was witchcraft playing another trick on me? Something just isn’t right here in Flemish hell, I thought. And I know it. You can’t fool me.